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Klobuchar on Abrams's Loss: 'I Don't Think The Voter Registration Rules Are Fair'

'I don't like the way they run elections in that state'

September 13, 2019

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) on Thursday night claimed the voter registration rules in Georgia aren't "fair" while defending her tweet about how Stacey Abrams would be the governor today if it wasn't for "discrimination."

Klobuchar appeared on Fox News to discuss her debate performance when she was pressed by Bret Baier about her tweet last Friday, in which she claimed, "Here's your Friday reminder that if the GA Secretary of State hadn't been allowed to hold back 53,000 voter registrations, Stacey Abrams would be the Governor of Georgia right now."

"Why did you say that?" Baier asked.

"Because I believe that," Klobuchar said.

Baier asked why she wrote the tweet again and then mentioned how there was a report about 53,000 registrations that were challenged and that those voters could have come back with their I.D. He went on to hypothetically say if all 53,000 registrations were thrown out, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp would have still won because he won by 54,723 votes.

"I don't like the way they run elections in that state and I'm someone that believes that everybody should be able to vote, and I'm coming from a state that's elected Republicans and independents governor," Klobuchar said. "I am coming from a place where I think no matter who wins, you've got to have a fair process."

Baier later pushed back against Klobuchar, saying, "People look at this and say, 'This is not fair because Kemp won fair and square by 54,723 votes.'"

"I don't think the voter registration rules are fair in Georgia, but one more thing: You know what else isn't fair? It's that we aren't doing anything for backup paper ballots. The bill that I have with James Lankford. There's still 11 states that don't have backup paper ballots," Klobuchar said.

Back in January, Klobuchar tweeted she has "been on the Stacey train for awhile (sic) now" and praised her in response to the news that she would be delivering the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address.

Abrams, who has ruled out a 2020 presidential run but is still open to being a nominee for vice president, has refused to accept defeat in her gubernatorial election last November. When she was asked in March whether she would ever concede the Georgia gubernatorial election, she stated, "No." She also claimed, "I did win my election," adding, "I just didn't get to have the job."

Abrams appeared in an episode of American Swamp on MSNBC last month, where she said, "I think the election was stolen from the people of Georgia."

"I don't know that empirically I would have won, but if you add together the thousands of people who faced extraordinarily long lines, who faced hurdles that should not happen in a democracy, the votes that we know were not counted, the secretary of state, who was also my opponent in the race, purged more than 1.4 million voters over basically an eight-year period," Abrams said.